The Secret Pond

This is an aerial view of Neil’s Pond, or at least that’s what it used to be called. It was named after the family who lived in the house above it. Even though there was that open field by the pond on the left side, and even though you could see the house and the road if you were at the water’s edge, the pond was very secluded. It was almost entirely surrounded by dense forest. There was a path that led over to it, and there was a path that surrounded it.

In the late afternoon on a warm summer day in 1978, a friend and I went to the pond, and we walked over to the wooded side on the right. This friend was a special friend, and the summer before, we had began to engage in sexual experimentation and play. We were already comfortable with seeing one another naked and experienced in touching each other’s bodies. So I wasn’t shocked, nor did I object when my friend asked me to lower my shorts and lay face down on a bed of pine needles. I knew what was about to happen because our exploration had been leading up to it.

It didn’t hurt. Maybe because my friend wasn’t fully grown. And I was relaxed and receptive. He got it in, and began pumping. He did it for a number of minutes, and then he collapsed. I could feel his body go slack on top of mine. I didn’t move. Didn’t try to turn over. I just allowed him to rest with his cheek against the back of my head and his body pressed against mine.

When he sat up, so did I. I could tell by the look on his face that he was rather amazed that he had gone through with it. We had actually done it. It. The thing everyone talked about. He asked me how it felt, and I told him that it felt good. And it had felt good. It actually felt better than I expected. It had been wonderful.

We didn’t kiss. We never kissed. We were not lovers. We never claimed to be boyfriends. We were just friends who secretly did things like this from time to time. So we simple got up, pulled up our pants, and went on our way. He went to his house and I went to mine.

I loved what he had done to me. When I was by myself, I couldn’t stop smiling. And I knew it was an important discovery. I had already accepted the fact that I was gay the summer before. I liked boys, and I knew I liked boys. I loved looking at them. I thought they were beautiful. I was filled with longing for them. And although I knew about sex, and even though my friend and I had been touching each other, this was the first time we had gone so far. Not only was the experience intensely pleasurable, but there was also something about it that I can’t quite explain. I realized that day that this was something I was meant to do. I didn’t just like boys. I wanted and needed to physically couple with them.

I took my evening bath, and I noticed the water was unusually dirty and pine needles floated on the surface. This pleased me. I liked seeing that dirty water and those pine needles. And I could still feel my friend inside me. It was one of the more significant days in my life. I knew it even then.

The day lives on in my mind as a kind of magic, otherworldly event. But the situation was not perfect. Both my friend and I came from dysfunctional homes, and this was the reason we could slip away for hours at a time without giving an accounting of where we had been. No one was paying that much attention to us. But that neglect is what afforded us the opportunity to explore our developing sexuality. I wish we didn’t have to be so secretive, but the culture was very homophobic. Our parents would have reacted with horror if they had found out what we had done. And our peers would have reacted with derision and ridicule, if not violence. If we had been found out, we would not have been able to live it down. It would have haunted us through the rest of middle school and all through high school. Years later, people would have pointed and said, “There goes those fags who got caught fucking in the woods when they were twelve.”

Of course I internalized much of this hostility. But I never tried to reject my identity or my feelings. I embraced my sexuality. I wanted it. And I wouldn’t have changed it even if I could. But I’m afraid that my friend was more ashamed than I was. He never admitted that what we did was anything more than play. We did cuddle a few times, but he wasn’t prepared to admit to feeling any affection for me. And the next summer it all ended because we were getting older, and we could no longer pretend we were playing. He knew we had been having sex, gay sex, and he couldn’t handle it. We had a fight. Things were said. He went home. And we never spoke to one another again.

Years later, I found out that sometime after high school, he was having sex with men, but he still refused to admit he was gay.